iDo Not Like It In A Box
by twowritehands
Summary: Carly has a problem with tight spaces. Gibby is good at breaking her out of them. CIBBY. Background SEDDIE following iOMG.


**This fic was inspired by Virgoleo23's fic **_**Spencer Pulls the Therapist Card**_** and it fit so nicely with the Cibby fluff piece that had been nesting in my head ever since we learned Carly is claustrophobic that it basically walked into my head already finished **

_Disclaimer: just a fan having fun with someone else's property_

_..._

He'd saved her from a box once already—some pyscho's sound-box where she'd been held hostage for three days. He'd come charging into the house, beat up her crazy captor and liberated her, shirtlessly.

But it was Gibby so it wasn't as hot as it sounded.

The second time left more of an impression. Maybe because she'd actually felt like she was in danger. Which was ridiculous. It was, after all, just the school's stimulus chamber and Spencer looking for revenge. After running back to the lab, speechless, to ask Gibby what she should do about having witnessed a totally private moment between her best friends, Spencer had surprise-attacked them, shoved them into the chamber, and locked the door with a vindictive, "PAYBACK YOU LIL' SCUTTERS! WOO!" before fleeing the premises and leaving Carly in a five-by-six box that wasn't as big as it needed to be with two people inside.

She'd tried to keep it together, had texted Freddie and Sam with a plea to be rescued, but neither of them were checking their phones. She hoped it was because they were talking about what the heck had just happened in the courtyard. Gibby had no one else to text either, because all of his friends went to a different school. So they were trapped until their mutual friends made-up, or Spencer came back.

Neither would be fast enough for Carly. The walls were already closing in—the mirror doubling the size of the room didn't help, since it also doubled occupancy. Within a few minutes, she was pounding on the walls, hyperventilating, and screaming.

Gibby could only watch in astonishment. He'd never seen Carly fall to pieces like that. He'd seen her freak out over tons of stuff to do with the show but in those instances she'd been tense—rigidly maintaining control and lashing out. This was different.

"Um," he said. "Carly?"

She tried to speak, but all that came out was a weird noise. "_Nnnngeh_!"

He would have laughed but this wasn't the time. He nervously hitched up his pants. "Do you like, need me to do something?"

"_Nnnehheh_," she said.

He nodded, tried the door like she wanted, even though there were no handles or possible way to get it open. He pounded on it with his heavier fists but it had as much effect as her dainty ones. The more he tried and failed, the closer the walls seemed to get for her. She braced her hands on the door and put her feet on the mirror as if she were holding them apart.

"_Nnngeh_!" she cried indignantly.

"I'm trying!" he snapped. Then he took a deep breath. "Sorry, I just can't think with you flipping out. Just try to chill okay?"

"CHILL?" she screeched. Oh sure, now she could find a voice. But that was a good thing. Gibby suddenly understood what she needed. She needed something to control.

"Yeah," he said, turning to her pointedly. "_Chiiill_," he said slowly, enunciating the single syllable loudly.

"CHILL?" she screeched. "CHILL? HOW'MA SUPOSSED TO CHILL, GIBBY, HUH? I'M TRAPPED IN A BOX! I DON"T LIKE IT IN A BOX!"

He smirked. "I don't like it with a fox."

She looked at him in horror. "_WHAT_?"

"It's just Suess," he said. "Chill."

Her eyes flashed. "DON'T YOU EVER TELL ME TO CHILL, GIBBY!"

"Oh yeah?" he asked. "What're you gonna do about it?"

"I'M—I'M—_NNNEEEGGEHH_!"

She stretched out, straining against an imaginary push from the walls. She really thought she was keeping the box from collapsing. His plan wasn't working as well as he'd hoped. He stooped down, picked her up by her elbows.

"Carly, you have to try to breathe," he said.

The command had the opposite effect. Her breaths were becoming shallower and shallower. She shook her head, eyes wide. "I-I-I'm having an asthma attack!"

"Do you have asthma?" he asked, alarmed.

"NN-NN-HEH-NN-NN-HEH!" He honestly couldn't tell if she was shaking her head or nodding. He urgently patted his pockets, like he would find an inhaler there. Nothing but some fruit gum.

"Do you have an inhaler?" he asked.

She gulped for breath, shook her head, fingers tangled in her hair. "WH-WHEN I WAS SEVEN!"

"Well you're not seven anymore," he said. He contemplated the indecency of giving her a pat down, though the only pockets she had were in her jeans, and they fit her so nicely she had no secrets…

He snapped his eyes back up to her face. "Just-breathe, like this." He demonstrated. In. Out. In. Out. She tried to copy him.

She closed her eyes, imagined open sky as she clung to Gibby's elbows and focused on the sound of his breaths. They worked together for a few more seconds before her lungs began to cooperate.

Hey, it was working!

Gibby smiled in relief and noticed her eyelashes, how short and delicate they were resting on her ivory cheek—before suddenly she swelled in his hands and-

"_I have to get out of here_!" she shrieked. With proper breath the scream was twice as loud and pierced his ears painfully. She broke away from him and started kicking the glass. It rattled dangerously with each blow. "_RIGHT. NOW_!"

"Carly, careful!" Gibby cried automatically. He pulled her away from the glass, stopped it's rattle with all five fingertips. The cold touch of glass gave him the answer.

"Carly back up," he said.

"_NNNNGGEHHH_?" she asked.

He nodded. "Yup."

"GGGEHHH!" she wailed and again she could have been either nodding or shaking her head. He decided to go with the first one.

He backed up as far as he could, set his jaw, and then ran straight toward himself.

….

Sam heard the shattering of glass the moment she read the last of a long line of desperate texts from her best friend. She looked up sharply into Freddie's face. He'd also decided to check his phone—maybe to pretend like they hadn't just had a serious heart-to-heart about life and questions and the near future.

Sam was already acting like her old self, had even punched him and told him she hated him. Except this time, he got it, and didn't take any of it personally. He probably wouldn't take any of it personally ever again, because she'd put herself out there, showed him her hand of cards. The ball was in his court. She was _letting_ him have the ball. She wanted a relationship and she wanted to be the girl in it.

This was going to be _weird_.

Thankfully though, something crazier was happening in the science lab. An excellent distraction. That was what they needed right now. No need to figure it all out in one night. Impossible to anyway. Focus on Carly. Yeah, be there for her and the show. That won't ever change. Comforting thought. Whatever might change behind the scenes, at least they had Carly and their antics on the show.

Unless that crash was as bad as it sounded.

"What the—?"

They ran down the hallway, where bleary-eyed students were jerking out of their cat-naps to ask where the fire was. Sam kicked a couple of nerds out of her way and got the lab's door open.

"What happened?"

Carly sat curled like a fetus in the stimulus chamber, her fingers knotted in her hair, sweat beaded on her forehead. There was a gaping hole in the shattered glass, shards glittering the floor, and Gibby, shaking the glass from his head and shoulders.

"Dude!" Sam cried, spitting her hair out of her mouth.

Carly climbed out, rigid and breathing deeply. She swallowed and gave a weak laugh. "Whoops."

"What happened?" Freddie asked again. "Why're you-?"

"She's claustro-phemic, Dipwad," Sam said.

"Phobic, Sweetness," Freddie corrected with a new special tone, and something passed between them. Sam licked her lips and clenched her fists. This was one of the new things. He'd said he was determined to bring out the nice girl underneath. He would call her pretty nicknames as a reminder of who she really was.

That was going to get old fast. She'd have it beaten out of him in a week.

A shard of glass popped under her foot and Freddie wiped the expression from his face.

"Spencer locked us in there!" Carly seethed. She was so going to make Spencer pay when she got home. She'd only tortured him for science darn it! What he did was uncalled for! Now because of him she was going to get in trouble for breaking the school's new stimulus chamber. Principle Franklin had let her use it without the usual insurance fee. Looks like she would have to pay it now.

"So you broke out?" Sam asked with a laugh. Freddie shook his head and crossed his arms. "The space pod all over again."

"No. Gibby broke us out," she admitted. And it wasn't like she was pointing blame, just giving props.

"She was flipping out on me," Gibby said defensively. "I didn't have a choice."

"Dude you could have called us, we would have opened the door for you," Sam said.

"Yeah right! Did you even _get_ my text messages?" Carly asked.

Sam and Freddie looked a little guilty. Sam's mouth barely moved and she didn't make eye contact as she mumbled, "Just now."

Carly crossed her arms. "It had better just mean you two have—you know—kissed more or whatever."

Gibby was smiling. "Yeah, are you two, like, a couple now?"

Sam threw a box of paperclips at him. They bounced off his middle section and scattered on the floor among the shards of mirror reflecting Freddie's shrug a million times. "We're still figuring it out."

"Cool," Gibby said. He rolled his shoulder, took off his shirt to shake it out. Carly caught her eyes lingering on his smooth tanned back, the groove of his spine, and the way his shoulder blades rotated as he turned his shirt inside out to pick out the glass.

Amazingly, he didn't have a scratched on him. Not that she could see anyway. She suddenly wanted to be close enough to make sure, but the suddenness of that desire alarmed her and she decided she had to be on the other side of the tech-cart.

Freddie and Sam were now arguing about Principle Franklin's game of favoritism and whether or not Gibby would have to pay for his destruction. Carly was smiling at the pear pad she was pointlessly tapping into. Much like between her oldest friends, something had changed for her and her newest one.

She glanced at Gibby, who was checking his phone as he laughed with Freddie and Sam about something. Carly chuckled and shook her head at this guy.

He'd charged through a glass wall for her and didn't suffer a scratch.

But it was Gibby, so it wasn't as hot as it sounded.

…or was it?

**Fin.**

AN: Is it me or is this tight-spaces thing the most interesting thing about Carly? I'm glad Dan is finally giving her a little more depth.

_Authors of _

_~The Cabal~_

_will be posting new stuff _**_on June 11__th _**_in a mass posting_

_SO BE SURE TO CHECK IT OUT!_


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